Second Opinion (18 page)

He caught her glance and laughed. ‘You look as though you’re having naughty thoughts,’ he said under the cover of Bridget talking to Vanny. ‘You know, that contented cat look.’

She knew she had reddened and hoped it wouldn’t show in this generally ruby environment. ‘So, you’re a clairvoyant now!’ she said. ‘Able to read minds. Well, that’ll make it easier for you to sort out the nation’s sins, I imagine. Spot them by their thoughts before they even commit the crimes.’

‘It doesn’t work for crime. Only with personal thoughts in ladies — sorry, women — I like,’ he said and slid a hand across beneath the table and took her knee in a warm grip. ‘Go on. Tell me I’m guilty of sexual harassment now.’

She looked down at his hand and thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I shan’t.’

‘Oh? Why not? Isn’t it all wrong in your feminist bible for a man to handle a woman?’

‘It’s the intent that matters in my book, never mind anyone else’s. A hand on my knee right here in the middle of a crowded theatre when the interval’s almost over offers no way you can go any further than a bit of knee-clasping. So it doesn’t matter. Clasp on if you enjoy it’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he said disgustedly, taking his hand away. ‘You’re no fun at all.’ He winked at her to take the sting from his words and turned back to Vanny and Bridget as the Chairman returned to the stage.

‘Hold on to your seat belts, girls. The next few minutes’ll be bumpy!’

The Chairman advanced to the front of the stage and after some obviously well-rehearsed ad libs in which the regulars in the audience joined with glee, announced loudly that he was interested in the identity of visitors from abroad. Before they knew what was to happen, Gus had both Bridget and Vanny on their feet accepting a graceful welcome from the Chairman to ‘these citizens of the revolting colonies’ and letting him point out to them that ‘if it hadn’t been for that silly misunderstanding in Boston Harbour, all this could have been yours,’ another line in which the cognoscenti in the audience joined. All this was followed by various people announcing it was their birthday and being sung to (including a set of rather elderly triplets in the back seats, at whose appearance one of the more drunken members of the audience announced in ringing tones, ‘They are triplets, sir, because their father stuttered!’ a sally which reduced both Vanny and Bridget to helpless tears of laughter) and then the audience settled down again to more singing and clowning. Vanny and Bridget sat in blissful contentment and Gus very deliberately leaned
sideways towards George and took her hand and held it warmly between both of his.

‘Now I know it don’t count as harassment, at least I can enjoy this much,’ he whispered. And leaned back happily to watch the stage.

It was at the very end of the show, when the whole audience was involved in singing yet again, that George heard the bleeping sound. Gus cursed softly and reached into his breast pocket. George could see the pager he brought out and peered at it over his shoulder just as he hit the bleep-cancel button.

‘Call in soonest,’ it said. ‘Big one.’

The show was almost over now and Gus looked at the pager again and then at his watch and clearly made a decision. He sat tight.

It wasn’t till the audience was on its feet and surging for the exits that he murmured in George’s ear. ‘We’ve got a problem.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got to call in, and it’s probably a body. My pager said a big one. That’s Roop’s code for a body, and one there’s a problem over at that. Which means it could involve you too. No time to take your old ladies home. Do you mind if we put ‘em in a cab?’

Bridget, who was close behind Gus, leaned over and said firmly, ‘I heard that What’s the matter? Got to go home separately, have we?’

‘Sorry, darling, but yes.’ Gus was very business-like suddenly. ‘It looks like it Let me get to the car and phone in. If we have to, George and I will go in my car after we get a cab for you two. Got your door key?’

‘No problem,’ Bridget said crisply. ‘Jeez, this is the real thing, huh? We go out to this fabulous evening of real English fun with the nicest cop I’ve ever met in all my life, and I’ve known a few, one way or another’ — she winked at Gus — ‘when I was younger, you understand. And now just
at the right time you have to go and do the business. I tell you, it’s fabulous. All we need to really fill in the picture is a rolling London fog and the sound of horses’ hooves! Don’t fret, hon, just point us to the nearest cab and don’t you worry about another thing. We’ve had a great time and we’ll be glad to get back. Our gadding days are long over.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘More’s the pity.’

The crowd had thinned swiftly, many of the audience still clustering in the bars, and they came out into the Arches and turned right to get down to Villiers Street and the car — for which Gus had the key in his hand, since it had been given back to him in the interval together with information about where his car was parked — just as a cab with its light on passed the end. Gus broke into an immediate run to go careering down to catch it, bawling ‘Taxi!’ at the top of his voice.

Bridget tucked her hand into George’s elbow and chuckled. ‘That is one very nice man, George. Hang on to him, honey.’

‘Don’t be silly, Bridget,’ George said sharply. ‘He’s just a friend. You don’t hang on to friends. They just stick.’

‘Such stuff! He thinks you’re the best there is. It shows in every move he makes. You let him go and you are one crazy lady. Ain’t she, Vanny?’

Vanny wasn’t listening. She had her arm held by Bridget and was trotting along, gazing blissfully into the middle distance and humming. ‘And I’m away with the raggle-taggle gypsies, oh!’ in a rather breathy little voice. Bridget laughed.

‘She’s had the time of her life. Me too. Now I want bed and so does she. And look at that guy, will you? Caught the cab just like that! He really is the best.’

They had reached the end of the Arches and there was Gus with the cab door held open, looking at his watch. Bridget urged Vanny forward and pushed her inside the taxi.

‘On your way, you two! I wish I was coming with you. Just you tell me all about it tomorrow, promise?’ she cried and waved as Gus closed the door on her.

‘The fare’s paid,’ he yelled into the back as the driver engaged gears, ‘so you’ve nothing to fret about, OK? Talk to you again soon. Goodnight, sweethearts.’

‘Goodnight,’ called Bridget. She waved and the cab turned and went, leaving George staring after it, at her mother. She was still singing, sitting happily beside Bridget, repeating the same words over and over again. She seemed stuck on ‘raggle-taggle’, and the sense of misery descended over George again. She had thought that this evening her mother had been her old self, but she hadn’t. That had been a momentary thing. Now she was away again, no longer accessible; and George wanted to weep.

‘It’s all right, George,’ Gus murmured. ‘She’s very happy at the moment. And do remember she’s sleepy and had a certain amount of champagne, which’ll add to it all. She’ll be better again tomorrow.’

George turned and stared at him in the bright light thrown by the shops and cafés that lined Villiers Street. Passers-by jostled her but she paid no attention to them.

‘What?’ she said stupidly. ‘Do you know —’

‘Oh, yes, I know,’ he said. ‘I remember my old mum, you see. She had it And she was very like your Ma. She doesn’t make too many slips, but they’re there. I saw them, you see, the forgotten things. It’s — well, let it be. Mum’s gone now. Better off, if you ask me.’ He tucked his arm into hers and held it close. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. You can cope. We all have to when it comes to the crunch, eh? Right now there ain’t much of a crunch to face up to so forget it. Leave her to Bridget and come with me. Let’s see which sort of big one the nick’s got for us.’

13
  
  

The big one, as he discovered on his car radio when they pulled out from their parking place in John Adam Street, was indeed a dead body, and possibly one that got that way by means of murder.

‘In the car park of the Rag and Bottle, Guv.’ George recognized Sergeant Rupert Dudley’s voice even though it was distorted. ‘Down by the hospital, Asian bloke. Could have been — well, I’ll tell you when you get here. We’ve got the Soco there already and there’s not much to see, really. We need some forensic. Shall I let the doctor know, or will you?’ George reddened in the darkness. Even on the radio she could hear the note of disdain in Rupert’s voice. He didn’t like her and never had.

‘That’s all right, Roop,’ Gus said. ‘I’ll dig her out. ETA — let me see …’ He had reached the end of the street where it joined the Strand and peered up at the ‘No Right Turn’ sign, grinned at George and turned right, screeching across the traffic to do it. ‘ETA, traffic permitting, fifteen minutes outside, over and out and Roger and all the rest of that stuff.’

‘There’s no justice,’ George said. ‘If I did that I’d get pinched as sure as —’

‘If you did that you’d be a bleedin’ miracle, seein’ as you don’t have a car,’ he said. ‘And if I can’t get away with a bit
of traffic violation, who can? Have you got your gear with you? Or do we have to stop at the hospital or send someone over there to get your emergency kit, as per usual?’

‘No, you do not is the answer to both,’ George said, patting her big leather shoulder bag. ‘I’ve got fed up with having a big kit to send for or have about; I’ve made up a smaller version which’ll do for scene-of-crime operations and I take it everywhere now.’

‘Like a make-up bag,’ he said approvingly. ‘I do like a lady what
is
a lady, never caught without her necessaries.’

‘Rupert was a bit on the uncommunicative side,’ she said as he swung the car perilously close to the inside lane, taking the turn into the Aldwych. ‘Started to say what he thought had happened and then shut up.’

‘So I should hope,’ Gus said. ‘There’s too much chatter on the radio anyway. I keep tellin’ ‘em they ought to be more professional.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, I see. That was why you said Roger and over and out and all that stuff. Very professional, I don’t think.’

‘I’m the Guv,’ Gus said with sublime self-assurance. ‘I can do what I like. It’s them that have to mind their ways. And I don’t want important facts blabbed all over the airways for any listenin’ villain to pick up. And what Roop said means that it’s a nasty one. No accident. Murder even. Why else should he call out Soco? No point in having a scene-of-crime-officer if there ain’t no crime, is there? — not that he’d dare stick his neck out and say more’n that, even if I
did
let him chatter like a schoolgirl over the radio. It takes more’n his opinion to decide whether there’s been a murder or not. Until you and me gets there there’s no one properly qualified to say
what’s
happened. Right?’

She was touched by the easy way he included her in his view of the aristocracy of the policeman’s working world and smiled at him in the flickering light from outside as they sped down Essex Street, heading for the Embankment.
Another few minutes at this rate and they’d be at the Tower of London. He had to be breaking every traffic rule there was, the speed he was going, but his control of the car was total and it responded to him as though it had been a sentient creature.

‘Thanks for being so kind to my old dears.’ she said, and he tutted reprovingly.

‘Old dears, forsooth? What a nasty label! They’re a smashin’ pair of interesting lad — women. You should be ashamed to be so — so
ageist.’
And he positively smirked at her in a quick sideways glint before he returned his attention to the road.

‘Hell, they were old when I was a kid!’ she said. ‘It’s hard not to see them except as forever antiques.’

‘How old is your mother?’

‘Urn — almost seventy. I turned up late in her life.’

‘Thirty-three or -four she was, then, when you were born. I have got it right, haven’t I? You’re thirty-six.’

She was, to her own surprise, a little nettled. ‘How’d you know that?’

‘I make it my business to know everything there is to know about people I’m interested in. I am right, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, you’re right. What of it?’

‘Not a thing. Except that your mum was younger than you are now when you were born, and here you are saying she was old when you were a kid. Think about that.’

‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much! Now I do feel good!’

‘Serves you right for labelling your mum old. She’s old, yeah, but not
old
old, know what I mean?’

‘Can we change the subject?’ she demanded. ‘All I wanted to do was say thank you for being so kind and organizing such a great evening for them. If I’d kept my big mouth shut I’d not be feeling so over the hill now.’

‘Who said you were over the hill?’ he said. ‘I reckon you’re the perfect age. Like Brie just as it starts running all
over the place and before it gets a bit high. Delicious — Oh, get out of the way, you stupid bugger!’ He wrenched on the wheel and pushed his foot down hard to get past an elderly Mini that was toodling happily in the centre lane. By the time the Mini had honked like a flight of extremely irritated geese and Gus had flung open his window to make a highly unprofessional gesture out of it as he left the other car far behind, the moment for any response to that was past. Not that she would have found it easy to make one; to be told you were delicious was one thing, but like a cheese? Better not even to think about it.